Model 3 Supercharging Capable Discussion

[ModelNforNerd]

I don't want to 'deter' use of Superchargers at all. I would prefer to encourage their proper usage. It always strikes me as odd that so many consider 'Justice' as the application of penalties on everyone for the sins of a few.

My commuting situation has changed, I'll be down to 8 miles/day in the car.

But the Model 3 will be designated the road trip vehicle. (AutoPilot, FTW!) so I won't use Superchargers much, except for said road trips, and weekend getaways, so I couldn't really fathom stopping at a SC multiple times/week.

Isn't the point of an EV to give you that time in your day/week back?

Granted.....I'll be able to recoup all of my commuting electrons for the week in ~2 hours on a 14-50, but it will be done at night, while I'm sleeping, and maybe Fridays after work, in case we want to set out on adventures Saturday mornings.

 

[nwdiver]

Such as.....?

Everyone says Tesla shouldn't do ___, but no one has been able to posit a solution.

- Block access to a supercharger after X uses over Y time (2 per week?)
- Call Tesla to unlock a supercharger that has been locked due to frequent use (make it a hassle)

 

[ecarfan]

IMO the odds of pay per use are ~0

Watch the Q&A during the shareholders meeting yesterday. A question was asked about if the current "free for life" Supercharging model was viable going forward with the Model 3 and future models. My interpretation of Elon and JB's answer is that the Model 3 will not have "free for life" Supercharging included in the base price, it will be an option and if that option is not selected the 3 will be able to use the Superchargers on a pay-to-charge basis. They did not say that explicitly but I believe that was the message they intended to convey. Watch the meeting video and let us know what you think.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

- Block access to a supercharger after X uses over Y time (2 per week?)
- Call Tesla to unlock a supercharger that has been locked due to frequent use (make it a hassle)

That could get messy. What is it hurting if the person charges during off-hours? What about the unaccounted-for PR Tesla drivers provide when at a SuperCharger?

I was passing through Seabrook, NH a few weeks ago, but was in a rush and couldn't stop. Saw 2 Model S's parked at the SC's, and 3-4 people milling around talking to the 2 drivers.

There has to be a way to quantify "abuse", but it gets into a grey area or 2.

 

[electracity]

From WSJ last year:

AMSTERDAM—Matthijs van Seventer won’t take his Model S electric sedan to the Tesla charging station in the southeast part of the city if he is in a hurry. The chargers are typically loaded with taxicabs serving Schiphol airport.

A user comment from consumer reports:

Where there seems to be a problem is not "on the road" such as those two locations that are used almost exclusively by long distance travelers. The problem is within cities such as the Los Angeles area where even the new facilities such as Fountain Valley or Burbank are already overused. When I got to one of these locations on a Friday evening, not only was it full, but the cars there weren't splattered with bugs as they would have been after a long trip. Nor was it likely that most people would have been starting a weekend trip at that hour. It's more likely that local users are charging while they are doing their shopping.

Tesla probably can't increase supercharger 10x in these locations. How do they fix these urban situations?

 

[nwdiver]

What is it hurting if the person charges during off-hours?

Agreed... there's A LOT of ways that Tesla can tweak the system before they have to resort to fees. There could be 'off-peak' hours where the Superchargers are unlocked permanently even for local users.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

Agreed... there's A LOT of ways that Tesla can tweak the system before they have to resort to fees. There could be 'off-peak' hours where the Superchargers are unlocked permanently even for local users.

Maybe miles driven/SoC in comparison to home zip code?

i.e. you show up to a SC 5 miles from your home on Sunday afternoon and top off. Wed morning, after 50 miles driven, you come back and top off, then again on Sunday with 100 more miles driven.

You've been in 1 battery charge's range the entire week, 5 miles from your home, and you've topped off 3 times....I think we could agree THAT could be considered abuse.

 

[flamingoezz]

I would think a large percentage of people can make it to work, run a couple errands and get back home on 200+ miles.

I'd favor giving each car X amount of SC uses or X hours of free supercharging per year, after which point you would have to pay.

I think that'll deter those who live right next to a SC from using it instead of their own electricity, it'll satisfy the needs of most tesla 3 owners without alienating them and keep the SC traffic low for those who do need to charge remotely frequently and pay additionally to do so.

 

[nwdiver]

Watch the Q&A during the shareholders meeting yesterday. A question was asked about if the current "free for life" Supercharging model was viable going forward with the Model 3 and future models. My interpretation of Elon and JB's answer is that the Model 3 will not have "free for life" Supercharging included in the base price, it will be an option and if that option is not selected the 3 will be able to use the Superchargers on a pay-to-charge basis. They did not say that explicitly but I believe that was the message they intended to convey. Watch the meeting video and let us know what you think.

He said that they were going to 'decouple' the cost of the supercharger from the cost of the 3. I would interpret that as allowing 3 owners to 'opt out' of supporting the network.

Here's my prediction;

The base model 3 ($35k) will be a 60 or 70kWh car with ~50kWh usable similar to the first 40s that were 60s. To unlock the extra ~10 kWh will cost $5k and if you want supercharging it's another $2k. You have to do both to activate supercharging... just like with the 40s. That might be where the 'Supercharging cost $7k' rumor came from.

Tesla seems to be like streamlining production by adding things that not everyone will pay for then allowing them to unlock them later with a software update.

Either way... once you pay to support the network you get 'unlimited' (for travel) use of the network.

 

[ecarfan]

Where is the link for that quote?

See Elon Musk On Why Supercharging Won't Be Free For Model 3

The article quotes Musk from yesterday when he was answering a shareholder question, here it is:

“… we wanted to make it really straightforward and easy, that’s why the Superchargers are set up at -least today – for people on board the car to travel long distances for life. Obviously, that has fundamentally a cost… The obvious thing to do is decouple that from the cost of the Model 3. So it will still be very cheap, and far cheaper than gasoline, to drive long-distance with the Model 3, but it will not be free long distance for life unless you purchase that package. I wish we could [make it free], but in order to achieve the economics, it has to be something like that. What Tesla’s motivation is, to make electric transport as affordable as possible. That is what informs all of our actions. It’s not because we want to make things more expensive, it is because we can’t figure out how to make it less expensive. That’s all.”

 

[SageBrush]

It comes from the same place it does right now, the advertising budget. People get really confused by the idea that Tesla is somehow putting aside 2K from every car sale into a special fund that is used to build superchargers. Tesla can freely decide how much to spend on superchargers each quarter, and it has absolutely zero to do with some funny money accounting about how much superchargers are "earning". That's like saying that Apple has to charge for iOS upgrades or they won't be able to pay engineers' salaries to write the software. Superchargers help sell cars, so Tesla invests in them. Right now superchargers are earning absolutely nothing, and saying that 2K of each car sale goes to superchargers is fictitious nonsense.

The only point of pay per use is to manage use of superchargers and possible have a revenue stream that scales with increased electricity use, it has nothing to do with how superchargers are built.

(If you insist on believing that some portion of the price of the car pays for supercharging, then you can think of the pay per use model this way: Supercharge "access" is included in the car, and some portion of the Model 3 cost pays for building superchargers. Supercharger "use" costs extra, either say $500 up front or some amount per use. In reality that's not the way it works, though.)

I gather some 60k cars have been sold in the US, and around 300 charging stations at $100,000 each have been built. So to date, on average, each car sale has funded $500 of the SC network.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Wow really? Can I get my mortgage paid out of my "marketing fund" that isn't tied to any income?

I guarantee you that part of every car purchase is earmarked to "marketing" and part of that "marketing" is earmarked to Superchargers. So therefore the Supercharger network build out is tied to car purchases. If as Elon says they are decoupling the Supercharger network from the base purchase I assume that means that the "marketing" earmark is being reduced.

This is not quite correct. See my post linking to Tesla's SEC filings explaining how they account for the supercharger network.
[Rant] locals clogging the Highland Park, IL supercharger

The higher demand stations Tesla count as cost of sales (tied to car purchases). The lower demand stations are a marketing expense that comes out of the company overhead (not tied to car purchases). As of end of 2013 40% of network costs was allocated to cost of sales and 60% was allocated to marketing.

They also set aside deferred revenue (calculated to be exactly $500 per vehicle in other SEC filings) for ongoing costs and delivering supercharging over an estimated 8 year life.

 

[lolachampcar]

In a lot of venues, charging for electricity makes you a utility subject to all the applicable regulations (meant to protect the entrenched utilities). It simply may not be possible for Tesla to charge. That said, chargepoint seems to do it but with much smaller quantities.

 

[nwdiver]

I gather some 60k cars have been sold in the US, and around 300 charging stations at $100,000 each have been built. So to date, on average, each car sale has funded $500 of the SC network.

Some locations cost a bit more... Tesla claimed the value of the network at ~$150M in September of 2015.

 

[Garlan Garner]

I think this is really the ultimate solution. Having say 2-3 charges per month for free provides Tesla a huge competitive advantage and allows them to make good on the "long distance travel" benefit of the Supercharger network. Provide a small baseline for free to give everyone the benefit, then aggressively ramp up the pricing to discourage abuse/overuse.

As a purely hypothetical example:

PER MONTH (calendar month, rolling 30 day period, however you want to define the unit of time):
0-3 hours: Free
4-10 hours: $15/hr
10+ hours: $50/hr

But, the ultimate solution for consumers is probably not the best for Tesla. As a likely very infrequent user of Superchargers, I'd have a hard time making the math work on a $2k up-front charge (or whatever it may be). But I'd probably pay it anyway because the convenience of having it on those rare occasions is hard to put a price on.

Then they would have to go back to every SuperCharger and put in intelligent timers that can communicate with their NEW capacity database and shut off your power at your cut-off time. He has already said what they are going to do - and its not "pay per use".

 

[Red Sage]

They still need to control Uber drivers saturating certain supercharger locations with model 3. Likely the terms of service will be more explicit to manage livery drivers. There could be potential warranty issues with daily supercharging too.

So... How will Tesla Motors manage to 'control' the Supercharger access for others who use their cars for business purposes? Circuit preachers, real estate agents, insurance agents, door-to-door salespeople, pizza delivery dudes... Lyft, Uber, Nimber -- these companies might make business-to-business deals with Tesla Motors at some point. That should be enough to smooth things over a bit in regard to their members using Superchargers. I do not anticipate major issues coming to fruition at all.

A three minute or five mile warranty would remove plenty of concerns -- while propagating a whole lot more. Tesla Motors has already stated through JB Straubel and Elon Musk, that no one should worry about regular Supercharger use. Within two years of their statement, 85 kWh battery packs were retroactively warranted for eight years and unlimited miles. Tesla Motors is showing confidence in their technology. I am willing to accept that as evidence there will be no accelerated degradation or other issues from regular Supercharger access.

A potential problem is not a present issue. Should contingencies be planned for? Certainly. But they should not be activated prior to a certain, determined threshold of unacceptable behavior being reached.

 

[Garlan Garner]

So... How will Tesla Motors manage to 'control' the Supercharger access for others who use their cars for business purposes? Circuit preachers, real estate agents, insurance agents, door-to-door salespeople, pizza delivery dudes... Lyft, Uber, Nimber -- these companies might make business-to-business deals with Tesla Motors at some point. That should be enough to smooth things over a bit in regard to their members using Superchargers. I do not anticipate major issues coming to fruition at all.

A three minute or five mile warranty would remove plenty of concerns -- while propagating a whole lot more. Tesla Motors has already stated through JB Straubel and Elon Musk, that no one should worry about regular Supercharger use. Within two years of their statement, 85 kWh battery packs were retroactively warranted for eight years and unlimited miles. Tesla Motors is showing confidence in their technology. I am willing to accept that as evidence there will be no accelerated degradation or other issues from regular Supercharger access.

A potential problem is not a present issue. Should contingencies be planned for? Certainly. But they should not be activated prior to a certain, determined threshold of unacceptable behavior being reached.

The answer - Build more superchargers than what people need. Example: Gas stations.

 

[nwdiver]

But I'd probably pay it anyway because the convenience of having it on those rare occasions is hard to put a price on.

That's why it works

I'm disappointed that Tesla is planning to allow M3 owners to opt out. I want the supercharger team to have an embarrassment of riches. If Tesla sells 500k cars in 2018 I want them to have $1B to spend on expanding the supercharger network. If they run out of places where a supercharger is appropriate they can start covering stations with solar PV, installing batteries and buying wind farms to displace consumption to lower future O&M. At some point it will become self-sustaining and they can reduce then eventually eliminate the fee.

 

[gregincal]

Semantics... call it what you want... the point is that it's funded from vehicle sales. The question is do you then charge people to use something that they paid to build.

Of course you can. Superchargers cost money to build, but they also cost money to operate. Construction can be funded by vehicle sales, but you can still charge people for using them.

 

[SageBrush]

Why are we asking this question? Elon already said that SC will be an optional package. Are we bored or what?

The article quotes Musk from yesterday when he was answering a shareholder question, here it is:

“… we wanted to make it really straightforward and easy, that’s why the Superchargers are set up at -least today – for people on board the car to travel long distances for life. Obviously, that has fundamentally a cost… The obvious thing to do is decouple that from the cost of the Model 3. So it will still be very cheap, and far cheaper than gasoline, to drive long-distance with the Model 3, but it will not be free long distance for life unless you purchase that package. I wish we could [make it free], but in order to achieve the economics, it has to be something like that. What Tesla’s motivation is, to make electric transport as affordable as possible. That is what informs all of our actions. It’s not because we want to make things more expensive, it is because we can’t figure out how to make it less expensive. That’s all.”

Awesome